Tañamor to fight in World Cup

Two-time Olympic lightflyweight boxer Harry Tañamor is not finished fighting despite a disappointing elimination in his first bout in Beijing last August. He’s back training in the Amateur Boxing Association of the Philippines (ABAP) camp at the Teachers Village in Baguio City.

ABAP secretary-general Roger Fortaleza said yesterday Tañamor has been invited to represent the country at the World Cup in Moscow on Dec. 5-15. The AIBA (International Amateur Boxing Association) is reviving the World Cup, now to be held once in two years, after two stagings in Moscow in 2005 and Baku, Kazakhstan, in 2006. 

The previous two World Cups used a complicated team format with Russia winning the initial championship and Cuba, the second. In the revival, the World Cup will feature only top-rated fighters with the overall title awarded to the country with the most gold medals. Tañamor was the only Filipino invited to compete.

Fortaleza said Tañamor, 31, will no longer be able to participate in the London Olympics where the age limit for boxers is 34. So the World Cup may be Tañamor’s swan song.

For the first time since Beijing, Fortaleza bared the unreported details of Tañamor’s loss. He insisted Tañamor was robbed of the decision which went to his opponent, unheralded Ghanaian Manyo Plange via a 6-3 count.

“It was very clear that Harry’s body punches were ignored,” said Fortaleza. “They were clean blows but the judges didn’t score them. In the referees’ seminars, we were told to score body blows. After the fight, the referee (William Phillips of England) spoke out during a meeting of judges and asked how come Harry’s body blows weren’t counted. He was quite upset because the decision didn’t seem fair.”

The five judges in the fight were James McNally of the US, Armando Carbonell of Colombia, Evgeny Sudakov of Russia, Jue Wang of China and Hassen Boughalmi of Tunisia. Plange opened a 2-1 lead after the first round, built it to 5-2, went to 6-2 and finally, settled at 6-3.

Fortaleza said he found out McNally had it even, 12-all. Two judges scored more blows for Tañamor and two others, for Plange, making it a 2-2-1 draw. The quirk in Olympic boxing is for a blow to count, three of the five judges must press a button on a computer console within a second of each other. If there is a split second delay among at least three judges in pushing the button, the blow will not score even when connected.

“One judge had it 17-15 and another, 15-14 for Harry but two others gave Harry only five and seven points,” said Fortaleza. “It’s true we were not able to scout Plange but I think the decision was unfair to Harry. How can you score only three points for Harry the entire fight when he kept on throwing punches?”

Fortaleza said the open scoring system also made it difficult for Tañamor to overtake Plange’s early lead. “The problem with open scoring is a fighter knows when he’s ahead and if it’s a big lead, he won’t bother to fight anymore just to be safe and coast along,” he explained.

Fortaleza, 48, was the only Filipino among 34 referees and judges assigned to work fights in Beijing. He took over as ABAP secretary-general in 2003 after his brother Rene passed away. 

There were qualifying events where AIBA chose the 34 referees and judges for Beijing. The first was the World Championships in Chicago last year. Fortaleza made it to the top 10. The 34 judges and referees were assigned to the President’s Cup in Taipei a few months before the Olympics as a warm-up tournament. Fortaleza was chosen the best referee and judge in Taipei.

In Beijing, Fortaleza was accused of partiality by French lightwelterweight boxer Alexis Vastine who lost a 12-10 decision to Felix Diaz of the Dominican Republic in the semifinals. As the referee, Fortaleza slapped a two-point penalty on Vastine for excessive holding after several warnings late in the fight. The penalty caused Vastine’s defeat. Diaz went on to beat Manus Boonjumnong of Thailand for the gold medal.

“I wasn’t aware of how much time was left in the fight and who was ahead,” said Fortaleza. “As a referee, I only focus on what’s going on in the ring. Under the rules, I was justified in penalizing Vastine. I wasn’t sanctioned by AIBA and I can hold my head high with a clear conscience.”

Fortaleza, however, was not assigned as a referee in the finals. In all, he worked 13 bouts as a referee and 35 as a judge in Beijing. His brother Rene was also a referee and judge at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992.